Philomena Béserk is an acclaimed poet-critic – acclaimed, at least, by poets she has herself acclaimed, which comes to very many indeed. Her major critical works, My Canon: Everyone's Canon and Nepotism for Beginners were marked by trashing poets who had offended her (whether the offence had been deliberate or not), even omitting famous poets from subsequent editions if they had inadvertently won prizes she knew she ought to have won. Generally, she favours writers who approximate her own style and several times has accidentally quoted lines from her own poems to illustrate their strengths. Each of her sixteen collections has won prizes, coincidentally always the year after she herself judged them.
(photo from Cea's photostream)
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